


he looked kind, he was not

by mothergayselle



Series: ellana lavellan [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemy Lovers, F/M, Friends to Enemies, Heavy Angst, Love/Hate, Partner Betrayal, Sex, Threats of Violence, Trespasser
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:48:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25561567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothergayselle/pseuds/mothergayselle
Summary: ' I would not lay with you under false pretenses ' would have been a good answer if it was the truth. it wasn't. solas may have lured her there, yes, but lavellan lashes out at him while she still can.
Relationships: Female Inquisitor & Solas, Female Inquisitor/Cullen Rutherford, Female Lavellan/Solas, Lavellan & Solas
Series: ellana lavellan [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1857022
Comments: 1
Kudos: 30





	he looked kind, he was not

The fur. The chest-plate. The golden plate-legs shimmering in the sunlight.

His face, soft, as if he was miming something tender, like pity. Eyes a warmed opal, glittered and flecked with an emotion she couldn’t place, could never place. Not even when she was the one who knew him best. However sad and pathetic that was.

Solas. 

He made her sick.

Ellana had said very little in this encounter — the first in over two years. Two years since he’d abandoned them at Skyhold, fleeing into whatever forest and shadow would have him. Two years and many, many moments of confusion that rattled her brain around, molding it into a useless rag-doll she’d wished to yank out of her head and throw away. The words jostled her even now, bubbling and growing in rows of letters that had no voice yet were loud enough to vex her. Two years, two years, two years, two years, twoyearstwoyearstwoyearstwoyearstwoyearstwoyearstwoyearstwoyears … two years—

To be honest, it wasn’t the amount of time that bothered her. Two years was, of course, a long time away from a friend, but the time had been spent well. Ellana had organized the Inquisition, nurturing it into something efficient, unmovable. It wasn’t perfect — which seemed much more obvious now, after the Qunari’s involvement — but it’d once been the only thing holding all of Thedas upright, as if it was a frame or a skeleton that had grown thick with health, until it no longer bowed under the weight of the world, but merely, fused with it instead. Ever since the Conclave, it’d been her home, her occupation, her mission in life. 

A life she now shared with Cullen.

They’d been married, swearing themselves to each other in Elvish vows only hours earlier. Ellana never knew she could love someone so much in her life — never mind a human. And he was a human. He was the most human of them all, with imperfections dotting nearly every surface of his body — stories of his time spent fighting and raging against his foes. He was soft though, from the silky waves of his hair all the way to his ankles, which were perhaps the only unmarked part of him. Cullen was the answer to an excruciating journey — her metamorphosis from elf to leader, and all that was encompassed inside.

No, it was not the time that bothered her. It was the casual way Solas wrapped the time around himself as if he owned it — much like the elegant fur on his shoulders. It felt as if that time away from each other hadn’t mattered at all, because here they were, talking. Catching up. All the while, completely ignoring the radiating truth that he’d left her _without a single word._

She’d laid abandoned on the broken battle field, completely shredded and battered by Corypheus. Blood had matted her hair and armor — what was left of it — and she’d felt for a moment that she was dead. Death, however, wasn’t painful. No, she wasn’t dead. She was victorious, the unbeatable Inquisitor who’d defeated a false god, the origin of terror in all of the world. Her friends had gently prodded her, lifted her until she could stand by herself. Cullen had rushed to her side, face tight and agonized by his worry for her. He had taken her into his arms and kissed her hair despite the gore. When he’d pulled away, blood shined on his lips like paint. Like the paint in Solas’s antechamber at Skyhold.

Ellana had looked for him of course, to account for all of her friends -- no matter what quarrel remained between them, but she’d learned soon enough. Solas was gone.

His voice brought her back to the present. Solas spoke slowly, pleasantly, as if she was a student he was obliged to teach. Or maybe, as if she was a child who knew nothing of the world and yet performed as if she did — until Solas corrected her, of course, because he always did. 

“And now you know,” he said.

Yes. She did know. Deep down, in the most silent corners of herself, she’d always known he wasn’t real. No one was like Solas. It was like he didn’t even exist and instead, sleuthed around, a slender waif who darted in and out of circumstances which drew his fickle interest. It was what first had drawn Ellana to him — that mysterious, impenetrable aura which surrounded him. 

He’d been unpredictable to everyone in the Inquisition except for Cole, who’d whispered the secrets Solas had been so desperate to preserve inside himself. Ellana made sure to listen to Cole, to drink in what Solas refused her, but Cole’s prophecies were rarer than what was helpful. Ellana would remain left in Solas’s shadow while Solas watched from the surface, opal eyes hard, completely untouched by her yearning. He’d drowned her like that more times than she could ever count.

She always returned to his eyes. They were his beginning, the start of his whole being. There was something new in them now, though. A swirling, quivering thing. Almost like a presence. Something that made the opal in them brighter, more faceted. Wilder. Less elven. Who was he now? Had he always been… this?

Naturally, it was as if he’d answered her thoughts. Solas smiled at her sadly, making Ellana’s stomach fold in half. Ellana didn’t know if it was her irritation or just bad timing, but her left arm twitched and crackled with the Anchor, sending rivers of pain up her shoulder until the green tendrils curled around her neck like a fist. 

Solas’s eyes flicked to her arm, then her eyes. The mildness of the day embodied him — clear, polite, unbothered by anything else in the world. It was surreal to see him, standing tall against the backdrop of waterfalls and cliffs smoothed by wind. He seemed part of the world itself, a base element, necessary to the order of everything else. Yet here he was, a god -- or rather, her people’s god, no less. Ellana would never worship a god who refused her, no matter how intrinsic he seemed to her heritage.

 _Fen’Harel’s_ face softened with pity. “What is the old Dalish curse? ‘May the Dread Wolf take you?’”

A careless breeze stirred Ellana’s hair around her, decorating her face and shoulders with silver. Her arm throbbed, casting green light over the violet of her eyes. She dove into his gaze, jaw rippling and locked with intent, and forced him to remember. _To remember._

“Yes. He did.”

It was a half-memory, a thought too unbearable to entertain. And yet, she spoke it back into existence — the past — and watched carefully as Solas’s eyes continued to swirl with the alien in them. Her arm flashed like lightning but Ellana paid the agony no mind. The wind returned to play with them, and it passed through Solas’s arcane armor, stirring the fur and cloth. His face did not move. His brows and mouth remained soft like a father forced to parent their child into obedience. Ellana’s breath vanished into the air when he spoke next.

“I did not. I would not lay with you under false pretenses.”

The world went silent. Not even the birds in their nests dared to speak. The wind ceased just as the breath in Ellana’s chest ceased. Their eyes were still locked together, finding _too_ much purchase, opalescent and fuchsia, until Ellana could feel the purchase melt away — stolen, yanked out of existence. She could find nothing in his eyes, no remembrance of the truth. She knew he willed himself not to. If she didn’t get out now, she would drown again, shoved inside the shadow of his secrets and half-truths.

Ellana moved once, shimmering, darting too fast for a non-mage to see.

Their chests touched.

Solas’s face did not change.

He did not flinch.

He looked kind.

He was not.

He was cruel.

She said nothing.

The world opened, ripped, fractured, broke apart,

and, she slapped him.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Solas had made it clear. No sex. Despite their blooming relationship, Solas kept his distance from Ellana in that particular way. Whenever they snuck away for a kiss or two, if things became too heated or passionate, Solas would gently extricate himself from her, from whatever she was about to touch, and smile. 

At first, it hurt her. How easy it seemed for him to reject her advances! His eyes never gave him away — they were always stern and sure and unchangeable. Ellana would become drunk off his gaze, made alive, anew, like a light snowfall peppering the ground just as spring arrived. His boundaries were clear. No sex. Nothing beyond kissing and cuddling, which Ellana was fine with. 

She would never push his boundaries or try to pressure him into something he didn’t want to do, but she also couldn’t help but wonder why he’d established those boundaries in the first place. Whenever she brought it up in conversation, Solas would skillfully dodge the answer and seduce her with his romantic logic until she’d forgotten what she’d originally asked. It was backwards, opposite, inside out as he’d tease her into shutting the hell up. He’d inject her with his effervescent eyes until she blushed or stopped breathing — whatever worked. Soon, she got _that_ hint too, and stopped trying to bring it up. The confusion and wonder would nip at her, but Ellana got used to pushing them down. Letting them melt away in the mystery of her partner.

With firm limits grasped and understood, it was normal for Solas to slip in Ellana’s bed late at night, after he’d finished his studies. He never went to bed _with_ her — she was always deep asleep when he slid into her bed sheets like the shallowest, quietest rain. She never felt it. It was only when she woke during the night that she’d find him next to her, eyes closed, his icy mouth parted with breath. She’d lay an arm over his waist and pull herself closer to him and then she’d go back to the Fade. Sometimes he would be the one to reach out and entwine their bodies together. His touch felt like clouds.

How that routine came to be escaped her, just like many of their dynamics and rules. Everything was forfeit. Nothing felt real enough to hold. But she tried.

And -- there was… one night. One night only. It never happened again. Maybe it never happened at all. Ellana didn’t know. 

She woke deep in the night, stirring from a troublesome dream, she thought. In the dream, griffin wings had erupted from her back, lifting her high into the air — so high, she traveled far beyond the Earth’s atmosphere until she was in a black void, surrounded by millions of tiny diamonds in a dark horizon. It was beautiful and terrifying. No breath existed there. She was simply suspended above all else, held to the highest of skies, and suddenly, dropped. Her wings disappeared. She fell all that way, clouds, birds, stars -- and more -- turning to paste as she rocketed downwards. Breath did not exist there either — the speed of which she fell sapped her of all oxygen, and her lungs ached for reprieve. It did not come. It was only when she finally hit the ground, completely soundless, that she awoke. 

She wouldn’t classify it as a nightmare per say, but it came close. Jolting in bed, she gasped for air until her mouth and lungs hummed with the scents of Skyhold. Dust, books, paint, wood, sweat. That was her inheritance as the Inquisitor. A title she’d never asked for, but now, she was grateful for it.

The bedsheets rustled as she sank back into the mattress. Solas slept next to her — there were new lines around his nose and mouth — his face pale in the room’s shadow. She was still tired, not cognizant enough to wonder anymore about the strange dream. Sleep sunk into her like an arrow, and heavily, she shifted to her side, causing curtains of silver hair to scatter around her in an ethereal halo. 

There was no one at Skyhold that looked like her. Not even the other elves. Many of the people there were pale-skinned, but none donned her silver hair or loud, violet eyes. Dorian liked to remind her of that, of her uniqueness -- although he mostly did this when Cullen was around… not suspicious _at all._

At any rate, the Fade was close by, its muddled air already surrounding her, filling her nose and throat. Or perhaps, it was Solas, breathing into her face. Nevermind. Tomorrow would bring too many things to do. Too many duties to fulfill. 

Darkness — heavy darkness. It tugged at her limbs, making them lead. It was a pleasant feeling. Sleep was always reprieve. She rolled over, twitching with sleep, and something touched her lips as she settled, as if she’d knocked into it. Something warm and pliable. Soft. Instinctively, Ellana moved her mouth, parting her lips for whatever alien thing was greeting them.

It tasted… familiar. Comforting. Electric, despite her lumber. She was being kissed, she thought. By someone she knew. It was so nice — Ellana leaned into it and felt a nose pressing against hers, cheeks becoming flower petals on her skin. She extended one hand until something solid met her palm, and she pulled it in. A waist. Yes, a waist that she knew -- trim and lean. She’d slipped her fingers over its grooves a thousand times, in embraces only. 

Solas.

It was obviously a dream. The air felt green, if that made sense. The air was always tinted green in the Fade and she must have been asleep, or close enough, to feel it. Her body was thick with rest, and her movements were slow. Clumsy. So was his, she thought, as his hand cupped her jaw. Their tongues were sour with sleep and lazy. When her body was yanked against his, she sighed. This dream existed only in her mind. She would never tell Solas that she dreamed of this, of intimacy, because he would charm her with his stupid eyes and she would forget her own name. Still, if this was all in her head—

His skin was downy feathers. Somehow, throughout all of their idle fumbling, they’d ended flush up against each other. Both of them writhed with hazy desire, a fever wrapped up in a tornado, only, in slow motion. When Ellana slipped her hand up Solas’s tunic, he exhaled into her mouth. The breath traveled down her throat until it settled into the bottom of her stomach, singing to it, making it tremble. 

Limbs twisted and tangled like water slipping over the rocks and stones which adorn the forest creeks she’d loved as a child. Hot breath was everywhere, existing in every crevice, every space between them. Ellana gulped it down like nectar as liquid fire coursed throughout her body. Mana collected in her joints, and she could feel the surge of power in both she and Solas together. It pooled, festering, waiting until its hosts released it.

Solas’s exhales grew rapid, cresting over themselves in succession, and it was like a victory fanfare to Ellana. She sighed once more as he rolled her on top of him, and then he was inside her, and they pressed their faces together, sparks of electricity traveling in between their mouths.

It was rapture. Complete bliss. Not a dream, because no dream she’d ever had matched this. But it was also torture. Frustrating. Hell. Solas was always so far away, too polite to touch, too distant to ever truly bond with. She’d tried everything — respecting his boundaries, spending time watching over him as he studied his trinkets and toys. All so that she could fall more into him, if he’d let her. And he never did. Except for now. Maybe. And if he was… would he still love her like this in the morning?

Emotions tangled within her just as her hair whirled around them. He was so smooth against her — there were no marks on him that bore the tales of a warrior. They were both mages, and as such, could choose to obliterate all blemishes on their skin, if they wished. They could be completely naked and keep their bodies whole, untainted, holy. But what is a body that does not speak of its past?

There was no past on Solas’s bare skin. No scars, moles… there were freckles cast aimlessly about his shoulders and neck, and Ellana worshiped them with her lips. They were the only things she could hold onto. The rest of him was too perfect, too quiet. When she kissed him now, her mouth was angry at his beauty. He responded in turn though, crushing her to him despite the fatigue that still weighed them both down.

Solas’s eyes opened as she withdrew from his arms. It was the first time he’d looked at her. She sat up, palms on his chest, and marveled at the silver in his gaze. The darkness in the room was violent, lending little light to see each other. As such, his opal eyes were darker, and the half-lidded look he gave her now made her shiver. What did he see when he looked at her? A child, ignorant of their shared legacy? A friend, too beautiful to not have? A simple respite for the drudgery of their plight? _Anything more?_

Quick hands tended to her face and Ellana felt a wetness on her eyes. She blinked and Solas was suddenly there, mouth hard, his eyes glittering and narrowed with something she couldn’t place. His fingers caressed her visage. When he pulled them back, she then realized that the wetness had come from her eyelashes. Tears. Of course. At any other moment she would’ve been embarrassed at such vulnerability, at such _weakness,_ but nothing mattered anymore. This was the only moment in the universe, the only second that mattered at all. _Would_ matter at all.

There was a brief moment of flight — or so it felt like in her dazed condition — and Solas covered her. It was curious… he did not hold himself above her out of carefulness as Ellana had daydreamed he would. The full weight of his body laid upon her, warming her, loving her, and she couldn’t decide if her own breathing had become suffocated or frantic with joy. 

His thighs were powerful and languid on her own. He was an avalanche, with movements that flowed from one to the next. Silk on velvet. Known, but somehow unrehearsed. His whole body was a jewel and she was the crown he sat upon. If only he had come home sooner — if only he’d found her earlier, they could’ve been like this.

They didn’t look at each other again. They only pushed — Solas pushing himself inside her and Ellana pushing back, her waist undulating like a focused hurricane. She quivered with pleasure, trembled with rage. When she clawed at his back, she deliberately drew blood... Solas hissed in response. She’d finally marked him — marked him as her own perhaps. If only for these few moments, his perfect flesh knew battle wounds. Something to tell of himself that wasn’t hidden by the usual politeness of his face. The thought made her want to smile, but she didn’t. Blood stained her fingertips. _She_ was a story on his skin now. Let it speak itself to the world.

Sweat ran in rivulets down her neck. Solas encompassed her. He became her. He was one with her. It was so much to take in. She hooked her ankles around the back of his knees and froze as bliss ripped through her, crescendoing with the mana that mixed with her blood. 

The world around her felt wet. Wet with their excitement, their climaxes, their sweat, Solas’s blood beading down his shoulder blades… it was a reality made of oblivion and fluid, and it was all warm. It was the first time Ellana had ever equated Solas with the word _warm,_ because he resembled a winter storm so much more than anything else. Many things in Ellana’s life was warm. Her friends, her clan, the heat of a good battle. Hot food prepared by Skyhold’s best cooks. Dorian’s hugs. Chess games with Cullen. Cassandra’s lectures. Cole’s kindness. But Solas? No, he was always a cold front who flitted away before one could dip their fingers into him and find anything to grab, to make him stay. It was only now that he truly felt anything more than luke-warm, and Ellana nearly choked on the sadness these thoughts brought her. 

She stroked the hard lines of Solas’s back, taking extra care to dip her fingertips in his blood before it dried. She wanted him stained on her, inside her cells. Solas was careful as he slid to the side, keeping the brunt of his weight off her body. Ellana’s jaw locked, desperate to hold back the flood of tears knocking at her teeth when he draped an arm around her waist and kissed her cheek. It was a position they favored on any normal night -- suitable for both sleep and embrace without being uncomfortable. Normal. Was that what this night was? What he would try to make in the morning?

Solas, as usual, was the first to rise. Dawn’s weak, tired light poked through the double glass doors that lead to the balcony, highlighting her room by a fractional amount. She hadn’t returned to the restful slumber that preceded their lovemaking. She’d only existed in the shallow layer of restfulness that didn’t constitute sleep, no matter how hazy. 

When Ellana peered over at the opposite end of the bed, Solas’s pearly, luminescent back faced her. His spine resembled a giant’s tusk while sturdy muscle smoothed under the rest of his skin. The only blemishes were the dried, crescent-shaped wounds -- perfect indentations of her nails -- but, she didn’t have time to feel satisfaction before Solas was reaching around himself. He pressed a palm to each shoulder blade, the slight glow of the healing spell erasing the only evidence of the night before. 

She didn’t want to see his face. Ellana kept her eyes closed when he kissed the crown of her head before leaving for whatever important, secret thing he was going to do that day. It was clear that this night never happened. And she didn’t want to see another half-truth be dropped into his eyes like the two, shining opals already there, keeping them sealed. 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sound was an immolate spell ricocheting off the mountains and ruins around them. 

They were the two most powerful mages in all of Thedas. She knew Solas could have stopped the blow had he wanted. Or maybe Ellana had caught him so unaware that he hadn’t expected her to react with such rage. Either way, the clock-work muscles inside his jaw flexed together as his head cracked to the side. 

_This_ was the first time in two years that their skin touched. This was their reunion. Their inheritance. All of their experience, embraces, intimacy -- it all coalesced into this one moment in time. Her palm against his face.

Two years ago she would have pressed her hand to him and tried to smooth away the redness bubbling on his cheek. She only watched it, now.

The soft sigh loosening her lips filled the void between them. She moved a half-step backward as her face twisted with an emotion that cut, showed the hurt. Solas, lifting his gaze from the ground, did not look angry or vengeful. Neither was his usual mask in place. His expression was even enough, although the faintest of stress called from his eyebrows. They slackened, as if he was sad.

Solas, sad? When was he anything other than smug or hidden?

Even the Anchor seemed to hold its breath. Ellana touched her tongue to a cheek and bit down.

“You don’t get to touch me and then forget,” she said. “You’ll hold onto the Arlathan from thousands of years ago but not that one night?”

Solas looked like something heavy was sitting on his chest. “It would have been better not to.” His voice was a rose withering in the moonlight.

They were so close that she could see the sandstorm of freckles scattered across his nose and cheeks. The other entity -- whatever swirling, alive thing now residing in his eyes -- was dormant. This looked like _her_ Solas. The one from two years ago. 

The violet in her eyes twitched with green. The Anchor was clearly growing impatient, although she ignored the stabs of pain slithering up her arm. 

“You regret me that much?”

In an instant, both of their faces crumpled into the same mirror of grief. In battle, they’d been perfectly synchronized like this. From the speed of their spells to their positions on the field -- even the way they’d added flourishes on spells for fun -- they’d always known what the other was going to do before they did it. It was their chemistry outside of battle that was the problem. Except for now, it seemed. 

Their only path as equals was forged from their shared agony. It was the cruelest thing imaginable. 

Solas next inhalation was shallow, nipped at the edges. “I have _never_ regretted you.”

Ellana’s eyes burned from tears that wanted to rush forth. She ignored those, too, and let her gaze wander over the magnificent, gleaming fur and armor rippling on Solas’s lithe frame. It was an absent thought but still there -- the body she once knew and loved was so buried beneath his splendor that she couldn’t even see it anymore. He would hide this from her too?

“Yes,” she murmured, catching a reflection of herself in the gleaming sash wrapped around his breastplate. “How could you regret someone you never trusted? You never gained anything to lose.”

Solas’s mouth parted in horror. “Vhenan, if you think I did not _lose_ anything--”

The words died in his mouth as soon as they began. _Vhenan._ There was nothing more to say after that -- there it was. Vhenan. Heart. His heart. 

He averted his eyes away from her then. “I have lost… everything.”

Yes. This was so. His home, family, friends… his culture and language, his identity. Waking up after a thousand years in a different world than the one he’d known before his slumber, it must have been unbearable.

The living thing inside Solas’s eyes awakened, flaring pale, pulsing light. 

“Losing you is the last thing I am willing to tolerate. I will not lose anything else.”

Confusion mixed in with the green fire closing around her throat. Ellana struggled to think. She thought that her brain might explode inside of her.

“What do you mean, _‘am’_ willing? What are you saying, Solas?”

The alien was too bright for comfort. It pressed on his pupils, looking like it wanted to be let out and played with. Solas’s eyes flicked first to the mark’s light, which shattered along the cliff-topped meadow they stood on. Then on her face. 

“I _will_ save the elven people--” he said, and the knot of confusion turned into sickly, thick dread that dripped down her tongue.

“--Even if it means _this_ world must die.”

“Wait, Solas--”

Ellana recoiled, but whether from the Anchor or Solas was unclear. She stumbled, like tumbling rocks, steadying herself before she hit the ground entirely... although Solas had already reached for her, arms lifted and prepared to catch. Air filled her chest unevenly. Sweat coated her neck and shoulders from exertion. 

“Solas,” she said, and her face cracked open with panic, “Whatever you want, this world _dying_ is not the answer.”

“Not a good answer, no,” he replied. “Sometimes terrible choices are all that remain.”

Solas and the surrounding landscape swam before her. Terrible choices? He called destroying the world a terrible _choice?_

The pain in her body was blinding. Ellana’s head swelled with oceans of thoughts, soaking the inside of her brain, engulfing it. The sensation was too reminiscent for her liking. Two years, and it had happened again -- he’d poisoned her mind, slipped underneath the front door and set everything on fire. A small sound escaped through closed lips. 

Face warped with misery, she squared her shoulders and searched the _thing_ inside Solas’s eyes. The vallaslin on her brows wrenched into unrecognizable shapes.

“You’d let me die?”

For a moment, the new power in his gaze halted, turned off like a lever pulled. Only opal remained. 

She’d clearly caught him off-guard -- did he think that she thought she meant nothing to him? Did he assume that she didn’t care how he saw her anymore? Or if he valued her life?

Because the way he looked at her now was paralyzing. She heaved for air, shoulders bowing forward as green light crackled all around them. Still, she managed to hold his gaze. _Solas’s_ gaze, not the… thing he’d become. This Solas looked stunned, more surprised than when she slapped him. His tongue and mouth moved as if he wanted to say words but couldn’t find them. Although, that was also an answer in itself.

The answer was, yes. Yes, he would let her die.

Who would _do_ something like that?

The Anchor exploded as she cried out in horror. When her knees failed, Ellana expected to hit stone and grass, but instead, was held tight to metal and fur as Solas lowered them both to the ground. Agony filled her entire body, from the tips of her fingers to her jaw, down her belly and out her toes. A different kind of agony burned her mind. 

She was breathing too fast, too fast, couldn’t hold onto the air long enough for her lungs to register that it was there. They were a heap of touching limbs, knees, legs. Solas’s hands steadied Ellana’s shoulders as convulsions from the pain ripped through her body. She thought, maybe, that his gloved fingers lingered on her neck, where soft skin intercepted the clavicles.

“The mark will eventually kill you,” he said, as calmly as one would explain why the sky is blue. “Drawing you here gave me the chance to save you… at least for now.”

At least for now. He wouldn’t let her die _for now._ He loved her _for now._ That’s all love ever was with Solas! Temporary, unbinding. A good memory tossed to the wind. His favorite stave being exchanged for another. Honestly, it wasn’t anything he hadn’t already communicated over the course of their time together, but the remembrance of it hurt. 

Clutching ahold of the next breath, Ellana inclined her head up to Solas’s. The alive thing behind his eyes was bristling, lighting the corners of each iris. She thought he looked worried for her -- if only at the mouth, where lines formed from tension. Their faces were so close that she could feel his breath on her nose and cheeks, while green light from the Anchor filled the hollow spaces on his temples. 

Ellana’s face glowed with sweat, but her expression suddenly froze, like ore shoved in a glacier. The only things still moving were her own eyes, like his, except she didn’t have an extra soul or life or whatever it was that filled him. She had only violet, and the emerald shimmering of a thing he never meant for her to have in the first place. 

So many things that’d never belonged to her. In confessing his plan, Solas had just threatened the one thing that did. She was not the same woman she was two years ago. Didn’t he realize this?

“I won’t let you hurt Cullen.” 

The implication was there. 

_I will kill you before you can._

You see, her Solas had been an illusion -- a fragment of a ghost too weak to tell the truth. Her Solas died the moment he’d abandoned her on the battlefield after Corypheus, and, so be it.

Solas’s eyes blazed with light. The alive thing burst like a blue sun, nearly swallowing the opal. It was just as well. The pain of the Anchor had reached its climax. The overwhelming sense of green -- green light, pain, energy, magic -- was the only color in existence. She could feel the mana inside her own body be chased away by it, fire so hot it felt like ice leeching away her life. 

The breath stopped coming in her throat. She knew she was dying, would die, snuffed out by a thing that wasn’t hers. She understood why, of course. Only Solas could have borne the mark and lived. Only Solas could survive the weight of his own lies, could withstand the loneliness that was executing his friends in the name of war. What a sad… and empty life.

Ellana gasped for a final time, let the Anchor rip her in half, double her over… except she didn’t fall, even then. Instead, something soft like flower petals brushed over her sweaty forehead. It was a sensation she’d experienced a thousand times before. She knew the feeling of his lips on her skin, particularly with her eyes closed. It was the only way he’d ever let her feel him.

Solas?

She could keep her eyes open long enough to glimpse him for a final time -- the blue eating away at opal, his gold and silver armor gleaming, the set of a mouth that looked too sad to be polite. And then he was rising, gliding, walking away, spine rigid.

Ellana was glad when everything started to turn black. It was more peaceful than green. Quieter. Didn’t hurt as much. Solas became a quiet ray of light in the sun’s embrace, and the next time the wind came for the meadow, Ellana let it push her down so that her skin finally met stone and grass. 

Only one thought remained, lingered in the only unburned corner of her mind. It was of his spine. The way it looked the morning after, healed, like it’d never shed blood drawn by her own hands. The way it looked now, straight, disciplined, as if he’d never felt a loss so great that it curved, racked with grief. The way the Anchor racked her.

_Liar._


End file.
